China keeps panda gift domestic

As the Liberty Times points out today, China's regulations indicate only Chinese territory can receive pandas as a "gift" (other countries must basically rent them), and they will be sticking to that domestic formula when transferring the pandas to Taiwan. They will probably not make any particular concessions on this, and Taipei is not likely to make a big fuss, either.

The Liberty Times decried this as another intentional willingness to "internalize" the Taiwan issue into a Chinese only issue, especially following Ma's "one country, two regions" formula and the recent revelation that the government is increasingly calling Taiwan "The Taiwan region of the ROC." Not to mention other slacking efforts on the diplomatic front to expand and maintain our remaining allies, who are showing less and less interest in promoting Taiwan's cause or the slow progress of weapons purchases.

See also Ma's reinstitution of the song "I love China" (我愛中華), which will once again be sung at military bases across the country daily, and his plan to recite "Long live the ROC" on this year's Double Ten.

(corrected): Some lone protestor said Ma clearly wants unification and believes he should stop dancing around the issue.

Meanwhile, Ma tries to deflect some of this backlash, saying in an interview with the NYU Law magazine that China's plan for a "One country, two systems" model with Taiwan made him feel frustrated, but he'd continue to try to improve economic conditions with China and get them to understand Taiwan needs some real international space.